Never-Ending Campaign

Ne-en Cam

Before the 2012 Campaign Honathen agreed to join Captain Branch’s crew temporarily as payment for transport to Honathen’s hometown of Sunport. Captain Branch, keeping his end of the Bargain, brought Honathen to Sunport when his route came close after a couple of weeks. Honathen looked on as they neared Sunport with an increasing feeling of something being very very wrong. When he had left 2 years prior Sunport was but merely a Thorp of 47 or so people even in the few years he’d been gone it couldn’t have changed as much as he was seeing. Now Sunport was a actually a port with a bustling industry.

With a huff about the treachery of wizards Honathen headed to where his house was. When he approached the location he not only discovered his house was no longer there but it appeared that his house had never been there. Something was afoot. Realizing he needed to figure out what happened Honathen walked to the only recognizable building from when he was last here, an old druid’s Jewelry shop named Kerple’s Amber, But when Honathen got their someone else had set up shop. It was now a scroll and potion shop named Druid’s Treats and was run by the wizard Burlac Heise. When questioned how long Burlac had been there he replied, “About 4 years next Tuesday.” Honathen ran to the nearest tavern he could find. There he ordered a drink and asked how long had it been since they had set up shop. The barmaid Sapphira Bedel replied, “About 4 years next Tuesday.” It just didn’t make sense, How could these people have been here nearly 4 years? Honathen left not even 2 years ago.

Honathen left the The Purple Almond and went exploring. After all, there had to be something somewhere around here that proved his Sunport had existed, Right? it wasn’t too long before Honathen found a drunken dwarf on the ground mumbling about how “They” had taken yet another village from him and this Sunport was a lie. Honathen quickly rushed to the drunks aid and realized be recognized this dwarf. It was Minty a Dwarven blacksmith who had left when Honathen was a young kid. Both of them realized that there was now proof that they weren’t crazy. If the other remembered the old Sunport then something had happened here. Both Honathen and Minty headed back to the Purple Almond for drinks and to sort matters out.

There both Honathen and Minty saw a unsavory character, Calista Farine,quite clearly sizing them up from her table. When Honathen confronted her about her obvious behavior she distracted him with confrontational conversation. Quick to realize what was happening Honathen checked his coin pouch. While Calista kept Honathen distracted, her partner had taken his pouch of gold. Honathen challenged Calista to a duel outside for his gold back.

Confident of her martial prowess over the mark, she agreed and they headed outside. The fight was going steadily in Calista’s Favor. When she had managed to skin Honathen’s arm she grew overconfident and bold. She let down her guard to deal a potentially lethal blow to Honathen when Minty stepped out of the tavern and with his Dwarven might lopped off her left arm ending the fight.

Not wanting to leave without something for his fight Honathen took her 2 masterwork daggers as trophies/payment for his lost gold. Honathen and Minty split up and quickly left the scene. Honathen headed to the most cathedral looking building he could find in an attempt to find a priest who could heal his arm. He approached a church with an unrecognizable mark of religion on it. The Mark looked line a brilliant yellow sun with 8 points coming out of it and had an even brighter core of pure White within it. For a brief glimpse Honathen saw someone move behind the Symbol as if they had been watching him.

Needing healing badly Honathen headed in and found a priest claiming to belong to the church of Pelor.The Priest of Pelor had been preparing his next sermon when Honathen had entered the church seeking healing. The Priest asked Honathen if he was a follower of Pelor as he was only allowed to bring Pelor’s healing light to true believers. Honathen, realizing having a skinned arm was not a desired place to be, bluffed and stated that he was in fact a follower of Pelor. The Priest proceeded to heal Honathen’s arm only to have the muscles and nerves feel as if they were on fire.

The Priest immediately knew that Honathen was not in fact a follower and scolded Honathen for lying to him. As he was not a true believer he was not pure and the Holy light of Pelor was cleansing the impurities from Honathen’s Healing arm. The Priest then proceeded to start up the sermon he was preparing in an attempt to sway Honathen to the Light of Pelor.

Honathen ignored the Priest and proceeded to snoop around finding a strange sight in the Basement, There was a Circular Room around a pillar of almost solid light. There was a red floored hallway that went from the circle of light to an unknown destination but when it was followed no distance could be made.

Later, Under the cover of darkness, Honathen and Minty went back to the church to snoop around some more. unable to come up with a quite way to enter Minty simply threw his axe through one of the glass windows. once the ensured no one was coming they entered the church and proceeded downstairs. The strange sight from before was replaced by an even stranger sight. The Circular room was almost completely black and the red road from before was now a red river pouring into the hole in the center of the room.

Minty dropped a sunrod into the hole to see how far down it went. It was then that Minty and Honathen realized something was very wrong for you could see no walls or floor only the red river pouring down. They were in fact standing over a very immense space not a simple hole to climb down. Deciding that they were currently in over their heads both of them quickly made to leave.

Back in the main room of the church two very important things greeted them. Number one was the Priest of Pelor simply standing there waiting for them, and number two was the window had been repaired and didn’t appear as though it had ever been broken. Honathen put two and two together and , while drawing his daggers, demanded to know if the Priest was responsible for his town being for lack of a better term replaced with this new Sunport. clearly not even stunned at such an aggressive display the Priest replied, “Do you blame the virus for the fever if its the body’s fault it reacts as much as it does.” Realizing the flaw in the logic Honathen replied, “Of course it is the body needs to react to get rid of the virus if it weren’t for the virus there would be no fever.” The Priest amused at the response simply stated, “Then we are in agreement that it is my fault.”

without a second thought Honathen threw the dagger across the room and landed it square in the Priest’s forehead. Apparently not put off by having a dagger in his head the Priest smirked and declared,“Oh your a fun one.” before dissolving away. Honathen headed to the only place he hadn’t explored and that was upstairs where he saw that shadow behind the symbol of Pelor. Upon entering the upstairs rooms both Honathen and Minty were greeted with a gruesome sight. The Priest had been hanged and by the look of it, it hadn’t been recently. Some mechanical device had been set up to keep the body swinging in a circular motion bringing it to just within range of the Symbol of Pelor.

Inside the circle transcribed by the swinging body lay a note pinned with a dagger. Honathen picked it up and read it. Written on the paper was, “have you seen what devoted followers to a god will do if enraged? can you imagine their response when they find you in their church with their priest murdered? Some can be downright fanatical.” As he finished the note the sun had crested over the horizon bringing a blinding white light through the Symbol of Pelor. Looking down Honathen saw a throng of followers approaching for the morning mass.

Not wanting to be set up Minty and Honathen tried running for it only to discover that the windows were now all but impervious to damage and shattering. Trying to create a panic as well as cover up the dead priest Honathen set the church on fire. While Honathen was setting the church on fire Minty was cutting through the front door screaming “Fire!” The followers did not have the expected reaction. As opposed to staying away and safe they all tried to run in and put the fire out, pushing Minty and Honathen back in as they did so. When the two finally made it through the throng of people all went silent. All of the followers had turned and were staring right at them, Some of them even ignoring the fact that they were on fire. As a whole the body of followers said, “See? The greatest Virus of all is the collective will of man. If it takes a virus to stop a virus then so be it. I’ll be seeing you again sooner or later I’m sure.” With that the doors to the church slammed shut.

Minty and Honathen ran like bats out of hell. They quickly stopped by Minty’s house to secure food and traveling clothes and then headed to the port. At the port they looked around for a ship, any ship really, that was soon to set sail. There Honathen found Captain Branch again. Captain Branch had stayed at Sunport for a day to stock up and sell his wares, and was heading out again soon. Honathen offered 10 gold to simply tag along till the next stop, they had their own food and they would work as needed but they really needed to get off the island. Never one to turn down a hard worker or gold the Captain agreed and our Campaign heads off to Regalport.